One of those phases...

K, I'm gonna come right out and say it, I've been frustrated.



I had that big burst of understanding and everything and then....well I don't really know what happened, but I got in a rut.



I'm rather confused I guess, I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of tasks with goal that is so broad I can't begin to decide what I want to do when.

However, due to many previous experiences with "ruts" I know you just have to keep playing along. So of course that's what I've been doing all this time, I just found it hard to post about it all when all going perfectly!

I took the ponies to a friend's house last weekend and while we had fun, I think I did at one point offend Gingy. He really is more sensitive then he lets on too and when I rather callously haltered him, he withdrew mentally. I let him be and went off to play with Marsan, Marsan actually was the calmer of the two at that point. I took her on a walk with my friend's horse and they both were super calm. No, she was not introverted as far as I could tell.

Just the other day I was playing and as far as I can remember, it went okay. Still I felt like I was in a rut and it just wasn't very enjoyable.

Yesterday I played with them both and I rejoiced in all of the things they did for me. That is part of what I lost sight, I started ignoring our progress! I got to ride Marsan for twenty minutes yesterday and it was wonderful. Yes! We made it through all of the pre-ride checks! We've done this before, but that was under the experienced eye of a parelli instructor. This time we did it on our own!!! With Gingy I kind of just pittled around LOL. I know I should of had a more clear plan, he still did really good! I was trying to help him get his hq yields equal to his fq ones when going sideways and this time I did use the fence. He got it really quickly. So then I asked him to trot on the circle for a whole lap, he did pretty good, however there was a catch. He had to trot up a hill and he just couldn't quite bring himself to do it LOL. Eventually he made a good try and I let him stop there. We did some other things, among them sideways towards, which was quite good :) Oh yes, I used treats this time, so he could stay motivated and I could stay learning. He did keep pinning his ears when he was out on the cirlce and I'm wondering why, however I'm sure that if I just keep with the program that will be resolved.

Through this rut I have learned something important about myself. I tend to be high on progressing with everything and not high on being positive, so to bring things back in to balance I think I need to not worry so much about progress. I want to still have a plan, however I don't want to start worrying about ten steps ahead of where we are. I guess this self challenge could also be characterized as not staying in the moment and enjoying it for all it's worth. I came to this conclusion partly because when I do relax and focus on the here and now, then thing work out much better.